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Head of NSA: We swear that we aren't conducting illegal spying on any individual member of Congress.Sen. Sanders: Pinky swear?Head of NSA: Pinky swear! Um, but not with that hand. We know what you've been doing with that hand.

Actual question from the letter:"Has the NSA spied, or is the NSA currently spying, on members of Congress or other American elected officials? ‘Spying’ would include gathering metadata on calls made from official or personal phones, content from websites visited or emails sent, or collecting any other data from a third party not made available to the general public in the regular course of business.”

"Yes, Bernie. You're being treated like a criminal too, because terrorism."

"Well, so long as you don't include GPS tracking of your cell phone, hacking your computers to read the contents, and human asset spying, then no we haven't targeted any congressmen for any 'spying' activity"

Funny that tapping the lines to read the content is "spying" but hacking into the personal computer and reading the contents while not in transit isn't spying. Nor does location tracking, or remote microphone activation of a cell phone count as spying. When you list the methods so explicitly you miss the truth. Much like Clinton correctly answered "no" to whether he had sexual relations, but because the question was framed so poorly, he was impeached for telling the truth.

It is spying if it's "secret" data. I moved. I didn't make it a secret to the USPS. The IRS had an issue with a deduction and tried to reach me by sending me a letter. It bounced. After the legal minimum time, they made a summary judgment against me. The collections arm of the IRS asked for my current address, and was given it. The IRS could have reached me at any time, but the "secret" data was withheld from the disputes division so they had plausible deniability when I got the default judgment against me. But readily given to the collections arm when they asked. Who else knows or can get to the "secret" data? How can I find or edit the information about me? I've moved since then, and to another address not served by the USPS (as was the previous not served by the USPS, who still collected it, probably from friends and family who still correspond through postal email.

The FBI couldnt find their ass with both hands and a map.We need the FBI to complicate matters.If the NSA can rationalize what they do, the CIA can as well.We could throw in a few other 3 letter agencies for a complete Keystone Cop scenario.Keep em all busy.

The FBI couldnt find their ass with both hands and a map
We need the FBI to complicate matters
If the NSA can rationalize what they do, the CIA can as well.
We could throw in a few other 3 letter agencies for a complete Keystone Cop scenario.
Keep em all busy.

Make them line item accountable to the GAO. That should royally screw them all.

Here's hoping that he actually has some proof that they do. If so, this is a very smart move. If they say "yes we do", Congress will be forced to react immediately in some way, at least for PR reasons. If they say "no we don't" and he proves they're lying, then at least some officials will lose their jobs and/or land in jail. Just showing proof without this question would achieve very little - some fake outrage and no consequences.

If he has nothing... He's either gullible, just trying to show activity or simply hoping some proof will come up. He might be right - if there's anything like that in Snowden's documents it will soon appear if they officially deny.

Here's hoping that he actually has some proof that they do. If so, this is a very smart move. If they say "yes we do", Congress will be forced to react immediately in some way, at least for PR reasons.

There is nothing to "react immediately" to. This isn't some rogue NSA operation. The House and Senate already knew NSA was doing this, or at least part of them did. The Intelligence Committees of the House [wikipedia.org] and Senate [wikipedia.org] are the ones who are tasked with deciding which classified projects are created and approved, and sit in the classified briefings where progress on such programs is discussed. They're the ones who created this program and steered challenges to it through the FISA court [huffingtonpost.com] so that it would remain secret and legal.

Sander's isn't doing this because he has some big reveal he's hiding. He's just using this as a way of skirting the taboo against senators directly criticizing other senators, by instead criticizing the program those on the Intelligence Committees approved. In all likelihood the answer to his question is yes, unless the phone company has some special database entry which flags which phone numbers belong to members of Congress so their metadata is not included in that sent to the NSA.

In the bigger scheme, this is just a part of the whitewalling to dump the fallout from this onto the NSA in the mind of the public. By acting shocked and dismayed at the program, the politicians in Congress and the White House can appear to be innocent in all this when in fact they were the ones who created this program and created the laws which made this program legal (albeit Constitutionally sketchy).

I think there is something deeper to this. Even with no evidence that the NSA is spying on congress, he can still put them on a very difficult dilemma. The problem is as follows. If the NSA says yes, then they will admit to spying on the rulers of the US and opening up the possibility of blackmail implications, but best of all turning Congress against the NSA. If the NSA says no, then he can ask the NSA why they spying on the American public and not Congress when no laws should be applied differently.

My guess is that the NSA will reply something like, "We do not separate data between regular citizens nor congress men, but we further do not actively seek out data on any congressman or government official."

Incidentally, the comments on the fox news site are/were a bit amusing: on the one hand there's a "democratic socialist" asking important questions that might "impeach Obama", but on the other hand he's still a '"democratic socialist" so he's wrong by default. But hey, at least we have Ted Cruz to assure us this question is one “millions of Americans would like answered.”

The NSA has already shown a willingness to lie to Congress, what does he expect?

To make some important points. To anyone who needs it spelled out, the question serves two purposes. First, it plants a concern in people's minds by suggesting a possibility. Second, when the NSA is caught spying on congress, it's one more lie to hang them by (a fellow can hope, can't he?). It's all the better question because his fellow congresscritters will be more upset by the NSA spying on them than mere constituents.

Multiple questions never work when you deal with spooks. If the answer to any part of the question is no, then they will simply answer no.

It can be very annoying when you work with spooks. They will look you carefully in the eyes, consider what you asked and and after a few seconds answer with a one liner, that never actually tells you anything.

If they have even the slightest concern about appearing to care about legalities they're probably outsourcing it to GCHQ or one of their other partners who will do just enough (with NSA consultant personell if they feel like it) to cover the bare necessities. So of course they'll say no and of course they're spying on congress.

Yes I agree with this. This may be how the NSA is legally circumventing the system. They get the GCHQ to spy on the US Citizens, while the NSA spies on everyone else on earth. This may very well be why the secret courts keep on saying the system is legal.

I'm going to give you a bigger one. Having dirt on members of congress allows for significant degree of political control. It would be downright foolish for NSA not to use its current spying capabilities not to keep politicians currently in power in check.

Is it possible that they are not spying? Sure. Is it likely? Hell no. They'd be utterly stupid not to spy on the leaders, have as much as dirt as possible to have a lot of political power when they need it. That and they also legitimately need to spy on them to ensure that they are not betraying their own country, as these are the people in position of significant power to be able to actually damage national interests if they sell out to another country or hostile interest.

A member of Congress or the Senate on a day to day basis will deal with 100x the sensitive material you will. Furthermore there's the question of who gets access to the records & can they abuse it to blackmail govt. officials or otherwise effect policy decisions.

The NSA isn't spying on them to get that information. My point still stands, the NSA shouldn't be spying on anyone without a valid warrant signed by a judge, just as the constitution clearly states. That they are elected doesn't make them better than you or I, and their outrage should be the same regardless of who is being spied upon without a warrant.

a) Nobody knows exactly what information the NSA collects. They might very well have an extensive workup on everyone in Congress.

b) It's not a matter of better or not better. It's a matter of access to sensitive information & ability to effect the nations laws. Nobody is going to blackmail Joe Schmoe to pass laws benefiting them but they certainly might Joe Congressman.

So yes, spying on anyone without a warrant is bad, but spying on government officials is worse.

And you know that how? As Daemonik noted, even if they get important information by accident rather than intent, it doesn't mean that they can't use that to influence legislation for the benefit of themselves and clients.

If this turns out to be a set up question for another Snowden release (like when German Chancellor Merkel called President Obama to ask whether the NSA had been spying on her only to have Snowden release that very information within a couple of days), it won't look good for the NSA.

How could someone be both a terrorist and a member of Congress? One of them has nothing but contempt and hatred for the values of the US and wants to sabotage the nation's prosperity and standing in the world while using fear to manipulate its citizens for their own political ends and actively works to undermine fundamental constitutional principles. The other engages in terrorism.

I've debated many 'True Patriots' before. The type of mindset that the NSA probably attracts. A common mode of thought for them is that the US must be protected from all enemies, forign and domestic - and that 'domestic' includes members of congress who support 'un-American' ideas. Democracy is too important to be entrusted to a democratic process.

The argument could be made. Or, reversing the politics, it could be argued that senators who wish to tighten the limitations imposed on the NSA or reduce funding or military spending are exposing the country to danger - even if they intend no harm, they place the existance of the country at risk and cannot be allowed to hold office. I imagine many at the NSA would see no problem with, say, monitoring their emails for juicy scandals and leaking them to opponents or the media. After all, they are only doing what they believe is in the national interest.

Either way the fallout would be both spectacular and likely productive from a citizen standpoint. If either a or b happens and it gets swept under the rug, then at least we can be certain that the United States is no longer run by the United States government. Sometimes I wonder if I will one day be answering the question, "Where were you when the Constitution and Bill of Rights were permanently suspended?"

Sometimes I wonder if I will one day be answering the question, "Where were you when the Constitution and Bill of Rights were permanently suspended?"

It's more of a "how do you boil a frog?" type of gradual decay. The question will be more of "Where were you when you realized that they had suspended the last of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution?". In either case the answer will likely be on the day that they come for you.

Well I am sue the MI5 has a list (that they share with the FBI/CIA/NSA) of American politicians who where a bit to friendly to the PIRA and probably a few of the Ultra Unionist side as well.

Its not unknown for politicians to spy for the opposition John Stone House MP for example so over the course of the cold war its probably a good bet that at least some congressmen and senators where agents - thats what Anna Chapman and the other KGB sleepers where doing trying to make contacts with influential people.

I was going to make this basic point. Essentially it wouldn't be possible to really avoid collecting some kind of data on members of congress. If they're monitoring all of the emails and phone calls made by random citizens, and then one of those citizens emails/calls a member of Congress, then they would capture that data. The most that they could do would be do collect a list of phone numbers and email addresses that are known to belong to members of Congress, and then go back and delete communications

One of the things Bernie did worth noting is clearly stating what he means as spying:

"Spying" would include gathering metadata on calls made from official or personal phones, content from websites visited or emails sent, or collecting any other data from a third party not made available to the general public in the regular course of business?

Part of me thinks he has evidence of them engaging in something like that, much like Wyden asking Clapper about the wholesale collection effort. But with the clarification, and coming in written form, it makes a 'Not Wittingly' answer less liely (granted, Wyden did forewarm Clapper of the question, and did give his office time to change their answer afterwards).

What would be the advantage an unconstitutional spy organisation would have if it possessed informational leverage over a nation's legislators?

This advantage is far from unprecedented, even in the States. Perhaps J. Edgar tended only to collect information on persons of interest instead of everyone, but he'd have used the interwebs if they were available to him.

In an ideal system, the NSA would be by law required to wiretap all public officials and directly publish their communications to the Library of Congress with a daily transcript of "dirty conversations" sent to the FBI and appropriate OIG for human analysis. Given how Congress operates these days, and how successful they've been at pushing back on FBI attempts (post ABSCAM) to reign in congressional corruption, part of me while deeply opposed to what the NSA has been caught doing wants to see the NSA ordered to go Stasi on them.

We are the subject matter experts on what it takes to perform this necessary function (true).

People who don't know what we know and who lack our accumulated organizational knowledge as a consequence can't understand the world as it needs to be understood in order for us to be effective.(true)

Any decision we've made with respect to how we should conduct ourselves and any action we've taken is because we think it will best serve the needs of this national security needs of this nation (true).

Conclusion- we would do no wrong and have done no wrong no matter what we've done and any oversight by an entity outside ourselves, including (and especially) politicians or any event which,if made public, would diminish our stature, decrease our funding or increase oversight is a mortal threat (is there any other kind!!?) to the national security of this nation and deserves to be dealt with accordingly by us, without exception (false!)

This is the logic of the computer Hal 9000 in Kubrik's 2001, A Space Odyssey .

Of course we don't spy on Congress. The mere notion would be preposterous. And Bernie, how about that cute 20-something uninhibited hippie chick you have in Bennington that your wife doesn't know about?

A long time ago when I was in the military, I found out about a little tidbit of information. You see, sometimes congressmen go on "official trips" and they are reimbursed in full for all expenses they incur related to that trip. And sometimes, said congressmen are accompanied by members of the military. Well, the military members were not reimbursed for all their expenses and had to pay out of pocket for some items. Well, the congressmen saw the military members spending money above and beyond what they wo

This is a relatively public question, and Snowden has an obvious interest in keeping up with what Congress is doing about the NSA.

As others have speculated, it seems like Senator Sanders is trying to catch them lying on record to Congress, which would be major political ammunition. They're obviously going to answer "no", so all the Senator needs is evidence that they are. Perhaps he already has it, but if not, asking the question this publicly is a good way to get Snowden to dig through his stash and find the evidence that they are. Or even another whistleblower - someone might decide it's time to pull the same thing, and because of this ensure that some of their files cover congressional spying.

As the British journalist Claud Cockburn famously put it, "Believe nothing until it has been officially denied." We need those responsible to testify under oath on public record. We need their exact words. We need to hear how they deliberately mislead the public and congress with semantic games and outright lies... caught it the act, as it were.

But then our political leaders do the exact same thing all the time and usually get away with it too. So much for exemplary leadership and governance. I think Arm

Senator, I am sorry, your question doesn't make sense. The NSA doesn't do any spying on Americans, we just collect meta-data about your computer, phone, and US mail. We also control the worlds largest bot-net that screws with peoples computers to allow us to collect even more meta-data. As we have stated previously, meta-data is NOT data and all of our hacking is done from outside the US so it is perfectly legal. Thank you Senator for ill framed question.

I assume this is clear- he's trying ot entrap them, as when Wyden forced Clapper to lie. Wyden KNEW the truthful answer to his question already, he was just forcing Clapper to lie before Congress.\

Same thing here, for sure . We can take from this that the NSA spies on Congress. Snowden has a story about it spying on Obama when he was a senator. Maybe a leak is coming about this and the Senators are preparing the ground...

Yes, let the NSA spy on Congressweasels, but only if their findings are made public. I want to know who my "representatives" have been meeting with, what was said, and why they're really going to vote a certain way.

OTOH this still runs into a who-watches-the-watchers problem, because how do we know that NSA will release everything and not hold back to get a vote to go a certain way? Hmm.

Why is the drug trade still booming, and insider trading, organised crime still operating? You would think if this universal monitoring is happening and is effective the police would be far more effective than they actually are.

Congress has constitutional protection from the executive branch, so spying on them would likely be a major problem, even if spying on the rest of us is "legal". Also, lying to Congress is frowned upon. I think this puts Alexander in a real bind if he has to sign a letter to Congress.

With the current NSA guidelines, as revealed by Edward Snowden's revelations, any communications with foreign nationals would automatically be susceptible to monitoring. So it's certainly a common practice with the pervasive, wholesale telephone and email monitoring currently in place: Congress is _expected_ to speak with foreign governments as part of diplomacy, trade agreements, investigating treaties. and on behalf of foreign families of their constituents.

Whether more targeted monitoring of Congress is done by the NSA is another matter. The NSA's charter specifically forbids them from domestic intelligence, that's the role of the FBI. And for human assets in foreign intelligence, not direct communications monitoring, that's the CIA. But of course, with the new "Homeland Security" overseeing all the group's efforts, the lines have become not only blurred but deliberately concealed. When the responsibilities are deliberately overlapped and merged "to aid communication", it puts the tools of one group for specific uses in the hands of their supervisors who may have quite different agendas or guidelines. I'd look very, very carefully look at "Homeland Security", at the people who are expecte merge and organize the data and precisely what they are ordering or being allowed access to.

They've managed to keep out of most of this NSA exposure. But as an "organizing" agency for all the other departments, they're in a very dangerous position to weave those threads together into a much tighter cocoon of monitoring at every level.

They are spying on ALL OF US! EVERYONE! Yes yes that includes you mister important congressman...

They are also probably spying on the president, cabinet officials, etc., just like old J. Edgar used to do. It'd be easy for the NSA, since they're also involved in providing secure communications for the president, et al.

Still, keep believing you can score political points by pretending that the R's are better defenders of the 4th Amendment than the D's.

Which is why we need to take as much power as possible away from ALL of them. Call the Conservative's bluff: radically trim away the power of Federal Government. We can start by heavily trimming the budgets of the acronym agencies (DOD, EPA, OSHA, FDA, CIA, NSA, etc.)

What is the president's clearance? If the president walked into the NSA and said "open all your files" would they? Could they? Since that's likely more than any one person could make it through, what about presidential aids? At this point, the only peaceful solution I see is if we elect a complete outsider, like Jesse Ventura, who then goes through agencies one at a time and pulls out their darkest secrets.

It does not assume that. It reflects the fact that this is the case, and tries to use that elitism to gather some support among the political elite to overthrow the NSA ("how dare you monitor MY phone, rabble???").